Counting Animals Affected By Institutional Food Purchase

Eating smaller animals is "better" for the environment but causes more suffering and death. Faunalytics' Animal Product Impact Scales update explores this dynamic and how advocates can tackle it effectively.

With climate change noticeably affecting the world around us, political and educational institutions are finally starting to take action to reduce their carbon footprint. Programs like the Good Food Purchasing Program encourage governments to improve their procurement practices (which we covered in our recent report on local action for animals), while the Real Food Challenge brings educational institutions on board to purchase and sell more climate-friendly foods in their cafeterias.

This is a pivotal moment for animal advocates. We need a seat at the table to ensure that animals have a voice in the conversation. We need to ensure that it’s about reducing carbon emissions and animal suffering, about finding solutions to the climate crisis and overreliance on animal exploitation, presenting these two issues as interrelated.

The stakes are high. We know that an exclusive focus on climate risk and carbon footprint can go hand-in-hand with reduced consumption of meat and milk from cows at the expense of chickens and fishes because, as every graph (accurately) shows, raising chickens and fishes emits much less carbon. Eating them is better for the climate than eating beef, but causes much more suffering because of their small bodies.

Visit the Animal Product Impact Scales update for more info, including infographics and links to the data.